Research Operations Coordinator, Psychology

About the role

The Department of Psychology in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia seeks a proactive, collaborative Research Operations Coordinator to manage departmental research operations. This position manages the operational elements of the department's research portfolio, ensuring grant-funded activities are well planned and integrated with departmental staffing, financial, and administrative processes. Reporting to the Assistant Chair, the Coordinator serves as a trusted partner to Principal Investigators (PIs), departmental staff, and the College's central research administration team. It takes ownership of departmental activities and handoffs throughout the award lifecycle, anticipating needs, and resolving practical operational research issues. The Coordinator combines portfolio oversight with hands-on work—from coordinating personnel funding across grant and non-grant sources to processing transactions to resolving complex operational challenges. It offers an opportunity to strengthen research support, streamline processes, and support successful faculty research.

Who you are

You take initiative, anticipate needs, and follow through. You are a systems thinker with strong fiscal acumen; you understand how types of research funding, personnel, and timing affect departmental operations. You move comfortably between detailed transactional work and collaborative planning, exercising sound judgment about when to act, consult, or elevate an issue. You bring experience in research operations, project management, finance or a related administrative field, with a foundation in financial monitoring, reconciliation, procurement, and personnel funding or payroll costing. You are organized and analytical, able to prioritize multiple workflows, recognize dependencies, and carry work through to completion independently and in partnership with others. You build trust through reliable work, clear communication, and a personable, responsive approach. You communicate effectively in writing and conversation, translate complex requirements into practical guidance, and navigate competing priorities with diplomacy, discretion, and emotional intelligence. You excel in collaboration with different stakeholders who may have different or competing priorities.

Responsibilities

Research Portfolio and Award Lifecycle Coordination

• Maintain an understanding of the research portfolio's timelines, funding commitments, personnel needs, milestones, and operational dependencies.
• Coordinate departmental operations throughout the grant lifecycle in collaboration with research administration staff, including project kickoff, research project implementation, funding changes, approvals, renewals, and project closeout.
• Anticipate the impacts of new grants and renewals on staffing, teaching commitments, budgets, effort allocation, and departmental resources.
• Track deadlines and handoffs across UVA offices; resolve gaps and delays and elevate issues requiring specialized expertise or leadership decisions, including compliance concerns.

Fiscal and Personnel Operations

• Work with post-award administrators to review grant expenditures, reconciliations, balances, and spending rates to ensure spend down of grant funds and anticipate research project commitments.
• Coordinate personnel funding, including summer salary, graduate student support, payroll costing, and funding source changes.
• Support effort allocation and certification by coordinating information and resolving questions with appropriate partners.
• Manage or coordinate financial research transactions, including equipment purchasing, equipment fabrication, service purchase orders, consulting agreements, invoices, and fixed asset tracking ensuring compliance with UVA and sponsor (where relevant) policy.
• Coordinate departmental approvals for subaward matters including invoice review and approval in collaboration with the research administration team.

Partnership and Operational Effectiveness

• Serve as a key departmental contact for research operations and a key liaison with the A&S research administration team on research operations questions and research related issues/challenges throughout the grant life cycle.
• Translate financial information, requirements, and institutional processes into clear guidance and actionable next steps.
• Facilitate solutions across faculty, staff, and administrative offices, communicating proactively about deadlines, risks, and decisions.
• Manage a substantial volume of work with accuracy, responsiveness, and consistent follow-through.
• Improve workflows, tracking tools, and documentation to strengthen coordination and make research operations easier to navigate in collaboration with partners across the College.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree required.

Preferred

• Experience in an academic research environment.
• Familiarity with federal and private/foundation research funding.
• Experience with Workday or a comparable enterprise financial system.
• Familiarity with laboratory operations.

Physical Demands

This is primarily a sedentary job involving extensive use of desktop computers. The job does occasionally require traveling some distance to attend meetings and programs.

Pay

The anticipated hiring range is $70,000-$80,000 commensurate with education and experience. This is an exempt-level, benefited position.

Position Details

This is a restricted position dependent on funding and contingent upon funding availability. This position is based in Charlottesville, VA, and must be performed fully on-site. Application review will begin November 2, 2026. Background checks will be conducted on all new hires prior to employment. This position will not consider